


With These Hands I Will Kill

by K_Popsicle



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Murder, Body Swap, Dark Magic, Dawn - Freeform, F/F, Magic, Magic Revealed, Minor Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Murder, POV Morgana (Merlin), Pre-Femslash, Pre-Relationship, Samhain, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-06 08:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21223262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Popsicle/pseuds/K_Popsicle
Summary: Morgana decides the best way to kill Arthur is to be someone he trusts.





	With These Hands I Will Kill

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Impala_Chick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Impala_Chick/gifts).

The veil between worlds is thin at Samhain and Morgana twists her magic brutally to get the desired results. The druids deserve freedom, they deserve retribution and she will not shrink away from what that means.

Arthur was all but her brother once, and now he is her brother, and somehow that is worse. Tonight she plans to kill him once and for wall.

She’s made many plans until now, and her mistake in each one had not been doing it with her own hands. Well… her own hands so to speak.

Morgana throws the white sage into the fire. She has enclosed herself in the sacred mound, told them to seal it until the night has passed and the dawn breaks so that _he_ cannot get out, so the smoke rises around her, and she breathes its fragrant scent in, lets it fill her breath by breath and it mixes with her magic, mixes with the other herbs in the room, the bones she rests in her palms, and it pulls pulls pulls until she’s dragged out of herself. Then in a blink of an eye she’s in someone else.

Merlin’s body is, unpleasant. Gangly, but it’s strong enough for what she wants.

Morgana tumbles out of the pallet bed in Gaius chambers and relearns how to walk. There’s a twinge, as if the magic is fighting her, but she pushes down on that with her own magic, fierce and unyielding.

“Merlin.” Gaius looks at him surprised.

“What?” She tries to slur her words more how he would normally talk. She’s not sure she remembers exactly how he talks really, but so many strange things happen unnoticed she’s fairly sure this too will be ignored. “Do I have something on my face?” She asks, and dabs at a spot in a play of conscientious. Gaius pulls a face of long suffering distaste and turns his back on him.

“You were exhausted an hour ago, and now you’re up like a daisy in spring.” Gaius potters about his table, fiddling with scientific equipment that is _not_ magical but appears done with him.

Morgana wants to seal the deal though, and get her balance so she says, “I guess I got my second wind.” And Gaius makes a sad tired kind of sound, so she thinks that’s enough of that and makes it to the door and out. No-one comments as she struggles to get her gait down, but she sees a few sideways looks her way.

She runs into Gwen in one of the corridors, and she’s as perfect as ever. Bashful and smiling and lighting up the room with her love.

“Gwen,” she has a task, a purpose, but she hesitates to walk on when Gwen is right here. The night has only just started, she has hours to kill Arthur, but Gwen- she has missed Gwen too much.

“Oh! Merlin.” Gwen beams, and resettles her basket on her hip, “I thought you were feeling unwell.”

“Unwell?” Merlin’s body doesn't feel unwell, except for a slight headache building but that might be more her influence than his bodies.

“Dizzy?” Gwen peaks up at her and Morgana is annoyed at Merlin for getting that cute look directed at him, but can’t fault Gwen. Gwen whose heart has always been too big for her body and exudes love and kindness to everyone.

“It passed.” Morgana smiles kindly and Gwen’s expression becomes curious like Morgana has done something with Merlin’s face that is not supposed to be done. “Do you know where Arthur is?” She asks, because two birds and one stone. And Gwen dithers her answer, drops her basket and blushes brightly. All of those responses are interesting, but not what Morgana wants to hear. A small part of her worries about Gwen in this castle. Gwen surrounded by people who kill innocents for no reason, but today, now, she cannot worry about it because if she succeeds and kills Arthur then it will no longer be an issue, the Pendragon line will be dead and buried.

She decides to try his rooms first, but can’t help reaching out and brushing a curl of hair behind Gwen’s ear, “Stay in your room tonight, Gwen. There are spirits wondering the corridors.” Gwen goes big eyed and confused, and Morgana wonders how much damage it will do but plucks up her courage to put a gentle kiss on her maid forehead. “Be safe.” She begs, and leaves before she does something stranger, more dangerous. She’s gone before Gwen can recover from her shock, and she wonders what lie Merlin will spin tomorrow, because even he is not fool enough to tell anyone what has really occurred least he be burnt with the real witches.

Arthur is in his chambers, and her headache spikes horribly the moment she steps inside. There’s a tug tug tug on her, and she grows and spits and digs in with her magic even as Arthur looks up at her in surprise and starts to say, “I thought-“

“I got better.” She cuts it off and he pouts. Some king he is. He recovers quickly, sprawls his legs out like he was lazing around when he was clearly doing paper work. “I thought you’d be down by the fire?” She picks up random items of clothes strewn about the floor to make herself look busy.

“Merlin what are you talking about?” He snaps, and Morgana pauses, one shoe in her hand and meets her brother’s eyes.

“I head Gwen say you used to celebrate Samhain with a night vigil with your family and Morgana in the great hall.” She breaks eye contact and flips open a chest. There are clothes in there, but also, she can see the peak of metal. At the sight, she feels that desperate tug again and she knows _knows_ that Merlin is fighting her. Trapped in the sacred mound alone with nothing but bones and a smoky fire. Merlin is somehow trying to fight her. She didn’t think he could, but maybe as she is out of contact with her own magic in this body he can reach hers. She decides she has to be quicker and drops the bundles of clothes she’s gathered, but leans down to pick up the dagger. And it is a dagger, she knows it not only from the feel and shape of it but from the way she whites out on contact, like something _strong_ has thrown itself into her defences and it trying to break through with brute force. 

“Morgana is my family, Merlin.” Arthur corrects, sounding put upon.

“She may have been, but she’s not anymore.” Morgana says, and she sees Arthur clamp up and shut down so she changes tact because she’s not supposed to be putting him on his guard. This man, this _king_ who sacrificed nothing and got everything. Who has Merlin, who has Gwen, who has the kingdom. This man can say what he wants, but she knows that in his heart there is only blackness, and on his hands there is only blood.

“Do you presume to tell me who my family is now, Merlin?” Arthur asks low and dangerous.

Morgana puts on a placid smile, hides the unsheathed dagger behind her back and says, “Of course not Your Highness,” as she approaches him on borrowed legs.

Ever step hurts more than the last, in her head, in her back, her fingers go numb but she holds on tight. She’s going to end this. The war. The genocide. Everything her _brother_ has let continue since he ascended the throne. Everything he would have stopped if he were a good man and she doesn’t want to be the one holding the knife but she _is_, so she’ll do it.

“What on earth are you doing, Merlin?” Arthur asks when she gets close enough.

“My duty.” She assures, and he gives her a strange look, and she wobbles slightly where she stands.

Arthur jumps up and pushes her into the chair, she manages not to show him the dagger but it is a close call under the unexpected movement.

“For goodness sake’s Merlin, you went to bed early because you were loopy, and now this? Why do you insist on making my life harder?”

“I-“ she stalls on words, her head blanks. For one second she’s in the sacred mound 

but her will is stronger than some weak servant boy who can’t even think for himself and the next second she’s back, Arthur hovering over her and his throat ready for the taking. She lunges, dagger swinging out and something cracks. It rends through her and rips her world open and Arthur freezes where he stands, and her hand is half way there but she can’t move.

“Arthur.” She says through the pain cutting through her, but his face is unresponsive. For one second she thinks she did this. Because it’s strong and it’s indomitable and that is everything she desires. But she knows, her magic would never have stopped her. “Let me go.” She tells the magic lashing her down. “If I have to kill you to get to him I will.” She warns.

Then she hears him in her head, seething and furious, “You’re going to have to.” Merlin tells her, his voice is static and power and magic and she feels it, now, what he’s had locked down from all of them all along. But it’s too late to use the revelation as he forces her back out of his body, sends her hurtling back to her own. “Don’t come back.”

“He’ll kill you too.” She warns as the last tenuous connection between them starts to break. “You’re one of us Merlin, he’ll kill you too.”

Morgana comes to herself and the night has passed. The day lingers with promises of a cold winter. Morgana’s fire has been kicked out. She summons a light to keep her company until the druids let her out, and scribbled on the walls in charcoal are ruins spells she’s never seen before. And she wonders how long he paced, trying to break the spell she’d case on him, trying to save his precious Arthur.

She wants to save him, save all her people, but the next time he stands between her and salvation she’ll do to him what she has to do to Arthur. It will be a small price to pay. But maybe, maybe she can persuade him. Change his mind.

A plan forms. A plan where she can have him, and sweet sweet Gwen. But she will have to play her cards right because their loyalty is absolute and blind, but if she can move it, sway it, that loyalty will be hers, and that is worth more than even Arthurs death.


End file.
